Canada Diplomats Start Walking Off the Job

Canada’s Governor General David Johnston arrives to a meeting with Peru’s President Ollanta Humala in Lima in December.

The stakes in the labor dispute between Canada’s foreign service and the Conservative government just got a whole lot higher.

The Professional Association of Foreign Service Workers — the union representing 1,500 active and retired foreign-service employees — instructed nearly 50 members working in Ottawa, Africa and Mexico Cityto walk off the job on Monday. The union voted to authorize a strike back in April, but has so far refrained from walking off the job until this week.

“These are the most severe job actions that we can undertake,” said Tim Edwards, the union president. “This is an escalation meant to bring additional pressure on our employer to return to the table to address our long-standing wage gap.”

These strikes will continue indefinitely, and be monitored daily to determine their effectiveness, Mr. Edwards said, adding the union is eyeing further locations abroad for additional strike action.

A spokeswoman for Canada’s Foreign Department said the government would do “its utmost” to ensure delivery of services in a timely fashion, adding there is a contingency plan in place to address any job actions, including work stoppages.

“To date, there has been no impact on operations at home and abroad,” said the spokeswoman, Emma Welford.

The union says its members have been without a contract since July 2011 and negotiations have been at an impasse for over a year on the issue of wages. The union claims its members are underpaid compared to peers in Canada’s civil service.

Before this strike action, unionized members of Canada’s diplomatic corps went on a work-to-rule campaign. And, earlier this month, foreign-service workers at Canada’s most important embassy — in Washington — went on a one-hour, lunchtime march with placards reading “Same Work Equals Same Pay.”

The strike by workers at five missions in Africa coincides with a week-long trip by Governor General David Johnston, the Queen’s representative in Canada, to the continent. Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird is also in Ghana.

Mr. Edwards said foreign-service employees in Ottawa assigned to help with African issues have also walked off the job, to ensure the government doesn’t offset the loss of services by using foreign-service officers in the capital.

Meanwhile, the union believes the walkout at the Mexico City embassy, which includes immigration and visa-processing workers, will have a significant impact, but said it doesn’t plan to target higher-profile immigration and visa processing offices abroad in Delhi, Beijing and Manila.

Mr. Edwards contends the Treasury Board of Canada — the government department in charge of public-sector compensation and operations — has failed to engage in “substantive” talks regarding a new contract.

A spokesman for Treasury Board President Tony Clement said the government is prepared to bargain in “good faith” with the union. ”It is unfortunate that the union prefers to take their labor demands out on Canadians. The Government will do its utmost to continue to ensure service delivery in a timely fashion with the least amount of disruption to Canadians.”

(This blog post has been updated to add comments from Canada’s Foreign Department in paragraphs five and six.)

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